I would just shorten it to "the lawyers win". Innovation, competition, and the fair market lose. It's a nuclear arms race to acquire lawyers. What is this bubble? An over-litigious-society bubble? I hope it pops soon, though by then all the lawyers will have weaved golden parachutes or gotten jobs as lobbyists and politicians, right?

Its actually quite simple, the west will become gridlocked, with nobody able to innovate anything the constant copyright and patent trolling shut everything down or drag it for a decade through the courts, while the east that have made it clear they won't be buying our products OR playing our reindeer games will become the new powerhouse while the west rots. We've seen this before, in the rise of the USA who ignored the old world's copyrights and patents and were therefor able to build upon the work done before and "stand on the shoulders of giants" as it were. Now our entire history is being locked behind paywalls, can't anything get done with an army of lawyers, all so the 1% at the top can try to keep their strangehold on the wealth. Sad really but all good things must end and the current reign of the USA as the big dog will end with massive unemployment, out of control debt, and the jobs all being sent to places where they can build without an army or lawyers on retainer.

A predator kills and eats its prey while simultaneously doing everything within its power to make its own predators fail to kill and eat it. This is not hypocrisy.

If Zynga sees the illegality of its own practice of copying other people's games as a calculated risk of doing business, then suing others for doing to it exactly what it does to others is really no different than basic predator behavior (which is natural enough...humans are predators after all).

If you misinterpret Zynga's allegations to be some sort of political or moral statement about what kinds of business models/actions are not appropriate, then yeah I guess they are being hypocritical. But since when do large wealthy corporations bother with principles?

Really, who cares in this case. This isn't Apple or Google, this is some crap Rollercoaster Tycoon-quality(in 2012!) games shop that got rich peddling its lousy wares off of Facebook's back. Zynga is a flea, and FB is the big dog - scratching Zynga off his balls with his muthafuckin' paws --

-- Y'alls - you can expect this shop to go under when Facebook does, which hopefully will be not long from now.

this is some crap Rollercoaster Tycoon-quality(in 2012!) games shop that got rich peddling its lousy wares off of Facebook's back. Zynga is a flea, and FB is the big dog - scratching Zynga off his balls with his muthafuckin' paws --

and it smacks of a massively corrupt, medieval style social organization in which 'might makes right', and trial by combat was the norm. if we have 'trial by most lawyers', completely disregarding any principles of legal ethics or empiricism, we have not really advanced past the state described in the Viking Sagas of the 11th century .

The issue is that if you find a way to level the playing field, someone will learn to play the game better than everyone else and you're right back to where you started. Companies used to exploit workers because you had to work somewhere if you wanted to survive and there were few laws against it. They used to rule with iron fists, threatening to fire people at every turn, or straight up beating them or subjecting them to other inhumane treatment.

Then the law stepped in with a new civilized way of handling matters. Now you have to take your disputes to court, they said, where a judge can enact justice! Here are new laws to go by. As a result, companies still exploit workers and rule with iron fists backed up by massive legal departments and boatloads of money instead of a few strong guys that don't care to beat the shit out of you.

Companies used to exploit workers because you had to work somewhere if you wanted to survive and there were few laws against it. They used to rule with iron fists, threatening to fire people at every turn, or straight up beating them or subjecting them to other inhumane treatment.

Nope. You'd sue as often as you'd likely sue now, because you'd have comparable resources in each case. In the current model, you'd have a bad-ass legal team. In the proposed model, you'd have a bad-ass combat champion.

In both cases, it's a matter of "all the justice you can afford." And Zynga, well, it can afford a lot of justice.

Broadening the scene a bit, this was one of the things that made me shake my head in amazement at SCO v. IBM. IBM is legendary at its ability to field whole armies of "legal champ

The really ironic thing is, supposedly laws are to supposed to remove 'might makes right' from disputes in a civilized society, and move disagreements to a courtroom where they can be decided in a rational way without bloodshed. If we have gotten to a place as a society where having more money allows one to buy legal victories with more lawyers, then there really isn't any reason for the fiscal/legal 'little guys' to not just pull out a gun and kill someone they disagree. The whole non-violent method of solving disputes goes straight out the window.

Interestingly enough, that is how radical and terrorist groups are created: the disenfranchisement of a group from society because it feels it has no voice. With no stakes in a society, there isn't any reason not to kill anyone who looks at you cross eyed.

The really ironic thing is, supposedly laws are to supposed to remove 'might makes right' from disputes in a civilized society, and move disagreements to a courtroom where they can be decided in a rational way without bloodshed.

you didnt 'come' to that point. you never left that point. the actual might which made the medieval ages, was never dropped - property ownership and wealth. only, the method changed. back then the wealthier used more goons to overwhelm the poorer, now they use lawyers. the 'might makes right' tribal justice was much more just than the actual 'might makes right' justice of feudal power. at least, you could somehow win against a single person with the tribal law. with medieval might makes right, there is alwa

One thing I never understand about "might makes right": it doesn't. You tell me that Earth is a star. I say it isn't. You kick my ass. Poof, the Earth magically turns into a star through the Power of Right. Wait, no it doesn't. So how did this become our way of deciding things in the first place?

it has become so in early antiquity, and it has not change since. it just transformed and translated to other mediums. it was raw arm power first. then it became religious power. then it become aristocratic power. then it became wealth.

What? No, money is a representation of life energy, not simple power. A person trades their time (life energy) for money. A person's wage or salary determines the exchange rate. That person can then trade that money for goods and services that other people have sacrificed their life energy to produce. I can have the equivalent of a nuclear power plant in my house. That's not going to put a single green bean on my plate, nor purchase a car to travel in.

In fact, "Corporation Inc.", Zynga's "Dream Heights" and your "Tiny Tower" are all quite similar to SimTower, which Corporation Inc. credits in their flash game. I don't own your game. So I don't know if you give credit to anyone for your "inspiration"

Corporations aren't individuals and doesn't work like a predator.Whatever Zynga does is becasue the people at the top wants it to do that way.Some large corporations actually bother with principles since the people behind the corporation isn't psychopaths, this is obviously not the case with Zynga.

Sure, but law and society are there exactly to avoid living in such the jungle where the predators win. Else I might as well go and shoot the CEO of Zinga.
The "natural state" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGyygiXMzRk [youtube.com]) is not were you want to live. The (extreme) irony here is Zynga using the exact tools (law) created to move from predator behavior to morals human rights to do the opposite.

If you misinterpret Zynga's allegations to be some sort of political or moral statement about what kinds of business models/actions are not appropriate, then yeah I guess they are being hypocritical. But since when do large wealthy corporations bother with principles?

Just off the top of my head, if Nimblebit were to sue Zynga, they could point at Zynga v. Vostu as Zynga's agreement that this kind of case is valid.

Why? Because legal systems take your past actions into account and corporations aren't exempt from that.

A predator kills and eats its prey while simultaneously doing everything within its power to make its own predators fail to kill and eat it. This is not hypocrisy.

If Zynga sees the illegality of its own practice of copying other people's games as a calculated risk of doing business, then suing others for doing to it exactly what it does to others is really no different than basic predator behavior (which is natural enough...humans are predators after all).

If you misinterpret Zynga's allegations to be some sort of political or moral statement about what kinds of business models/actions are not appropriate, then yeah I guess they are being hypocritical. But since when do large wealthy corporations bother with principles?

The real irony is not what Zynga is doing -- because they're *not* breaking the law, even if they're being unethical.

The real hypocricy is the whining on Slashdot about it. If Zynga copies a two man developer, people get all up in arms about stealing their idea, or their IP. But when the word patent shows up in an article, or copyright on music or movies, people all of a sudden get up in arms.

I suspect the common denominator is that people are hiding behind a veil of righteousness, but their motivations are

No, your arguments are trying to focus on a narrow view, try looking at the big picture and open you eyes.

Watch "Pump up the Volume"; then multiply it across many domains and perhaps you may get enlightened.

Personally, I have no problem with Patents, Copyright, or Trademarks; in fact, I do believe (as do most everyone here that I have ever read about) that these are necessary and serve a VERY important function in society. What I disagree with is a double standard; where one group of people can dictate/for

-- You buy a DVD for your kids, then make a backup of it so they can use that and if it gets broken you can copy your original again, -- why is this "almost" illegal?

What prevents the original DVD and the copy from being used at the same time? Thus, an unauthorized copy was made.

-- Posting a video that just happens to have the TV on in the background. TV is "BROADCASTED!" so is idiotic (but not if the whole TV is the video (but this should be left up to a Judge to decide and at the very least should not go

It not how much money the corporation makes or loses, it's how much the psychopathic corporate executives can suck out of the investors before it all collapses, bonus if they get to keep their multi-million dollar golden parachute as for the coders at Zynga, if they print out their stock options, punch a hole in the corner and tie the bundle together with string, next time they go to the toilet, they'll have something to use.

Why is it that companies that behave like this so often go up in flames in the great bankruptcy fire sale while the corporate executives retire to their mansions in tax havens.

Did I miss the announcement of a contest offering a prize for the company that can be the biggest douche-bag? I must have. Between these guys, Apple, Microsoft, and a handful of others, they must be having some fun at our expense.

Did I miss the announcement of a contest offering a prize for the company that can be the biggest douche-bag?

No, it's simply called 'doing business'. The prize is money.

Nothing has changed, companies have always acted like that if it gets them the most money. It's not like in the last few months we've changed the rules to favor those who act like greedy bastards -- that's always been how it's worked.

And, sadly, Zynga is far from the first company to be involved in two separate lawsuits, and arguing totally opposite (and incompatible) things in each.

You wait for Zynga to win and set precedent.
Then you sue using their own precedent against them.

That assumes that any lawsuit would actually get won. The majority of the time a company will settle the case if it looks like they are going to lose (or they deem it cheaper to settle than pay for a lengthy trial).

I should point out that not all legal systems value precedent as much as the US system. A lot of countries (my native Belgium included) use law as written as a basis for guilt or innocence, setting much lower value on previous cases (although they can be used to give credibility to an interpretation of the law).

Yes, it's too bad they didn't fight the suit. All they had to do is show a copy of that Zynga letter that was basically saying that, in the cutthroat business of mobile apps, copying other people's apps was the norm and you should just learn to live with it and stop whining. That's basically them giving anyone permission to do the same, right? My defense would consist of a cover page, a copy of the recent article comparing one of Zyga's games to the original, and a copy of Zynga's response letter. Nothing else, no hundreds of pages of quotes from laws, just those two articles. Case closed.

I noticed you had some complaints regarding Zynga's game "Dream Heights". I'm sorry they copied you like that. That's not cool. It sure looks like they're huge gans of yours. Though it looks like you guys are huge fans of someone too. There's a game called "Corporation Inc." I'm sure you've heard of it. It was pretty popular a few months back.

What a silly question. It's not about consistency, morality, or ethics. It's about what they can get away with, how far they can get away with it, and what happens if/when they get caught.

Gotta get with the times. There's no such thing as corporate responsibility. How the money is made, where it comes from, and what the consequences of making it are, are all problems left for everyone else to deal with. There's only quarterly earnings, year over year growth, and valuation. Get in, make a boatload, and pray to your local diety you get out before the whole system comes crashing down on the heads of all the less fortunate ones who couldn't get out in time.

What a silly question. It's not about consistency, morality, or ethics. It's about what they can get away with, how far they can get away with it, and what happens if/when they get caught.

For the sake of clarity morality and ethics are largely about the decisions of what one can get away with, how far one can get away with it and what happens if/when they get caught. Corporate Social Responsibility is about the effort to make moral and ethical decisions into economic decisions by placing a financial cost against the cost of immoral acts on the part of the company. Throwing ones hands in the air and running off is what makes the whole system come crashing down, communicating dissatisfaction

Gotta get with the times. There's no such thing as corporate responsibility. How the money is made, where it comes from, and what the consequences of making it are, are all problems left for everyone else to deal with. There's only quarterly earnings, year over year growth, and valuation. Get in, make a boatload, and pray to your local diety you get out before the whole system comes crashing down on the heads of all the less fortunate ones who couldn't get out in time.

My European friends used to love to use that song as proof at the lack of education of Americans. I used to retort that the only irony related to that song was that Morissette is Canadian. We all got over it pretty much by 2000 or so.

Many of the examples were actual irony, the rest are artistic license. Free ride after you've already paid is ironic, depending on the nature of the distribution of the free ride, and someone afraid of flying dieing on his first flight is ironic. Sure, rain on your wedding say is unfortunate, not ironic. But most are ironic, or at least have e hint of irony.

Why would they need to keep a straight face? They can afford better lawyers than anyone they're likely to sue or be sued by. The kind of business Zynga is involved in has nothing to do with ethics or image. If it was they'd have been out of business long ago.

Zynga claims that Vostu replicated a "bug" that was in CityVille. This kind of claim has been successful in map making and directories to prove copying of works. I would suspect this is why Vostu settled.

Looking at the claims it would be very interesting to know if any source was actually lifted from Zynga by Vostu. But from a layperson or judge looking at it the conclusion may be the same.

Game rules are not subject to copyright, however the exact source code and images are. I can imagine a judge saying that this "bug/feature" while independently coded in a clean room - is the equivalent of a trap street on a map or fictitious entry in a directory.

Looking at the claims it would be very interesting to know if any source was actually lifted from Zynga by Vostu.

It might be a case of cargo cult: Perhaps the programmers had the management-given task to replicate the game in every detail, noticed the bug and implemented it as well.

I'm a freelance programmer, and I get a spec like "do it exactly like program X" very often (it's just limited to certain features in my case, not whole apps). Nowadays I refuse these tasks, since it's hard to replicate a feature in every detail without just copying the source, and it might even be something the client didn't want.

Perhaps the programmers had the management-given task to replicate the game in every detail, noticed the bug and implemented it as well.

and I get a spec like "do it exactly like program X" very often

Reminds me of oddities related to Windows compatibility features. Sometimes what is required to make a program run "correctly" in newer versions of Windows is to replicate the previous broken API behavior because some program was designed around the way it previously "worked". Including buggy behavior can make sense in a certain context.

Also seen in other ways, like how OpenGL now passes an incomplete list of extensions to Quake so it doesn't crash on startup.

It might even have been intentional, did they specify what the bug was? In an online game i play (which is _not_ one by Zynga btw) there is a slot-machine type game you can play once a day to get extra prizes. There was a "bug" that you could exit the game screen and reenter it and get a new selection of items. This didn't let you choose what you won, it just let you choose which prizes you had a chance of winning. And there were a _lot_ of complaints from the players when they finally got around to fixing

I don't see what the issue is here. Yes, Zynga copies other people's games. Yes, this company was just doing the same thing. What you people are all apparently are missing though is that Zynga is simply applying simple, well know, and accepted legal practice of "I have more lawyers so fuck you because I said so". I really don't see how you can argue with that.

Google didn’t create the first search engine. Apple didn’t create the first mp3 player or tablet. And, Facebook didn’t create the first social network. But these companies have evolved products and categories in revolutionary ways. They are all internet treasures because they all have specific and broad missions to change the world.

It's one thing to post a rip-off game or a general concept. But Vostu did exact replicas. As in, side-by-side pictures look basically identical, game bugs were replicated, artwork is nearly identical. I think there is a line and that Vostu crossed it.

What are the comments here arguing? That exact copies of games should be allowed? That's obviously faulty. That no games with any similarity can come out? That doesn't seem right either. Obviously there has to be some compromise between these two extremes.

Really a lot of the comments here boil down to "I hate Zynga games," or "I hate lawyers."

What you may be missing is the fact that this is a case of a pot calling the kettle black -- Zynga is notorious for being the opposite party in such cases. If you re-read the discussion with this in mind, I guess you'll find that many of the posts actually say "I hate Zynga's business strategy".

that Vostu agreed that it produced games very similar to those produced by Zynga, but said that Zynga could not sue as it had unclean hands and had done exactly the same with reference to its own products.

Vostu is a Brazilian company, but the main workforce is in Argentina. Zynga came to the country first by spreading rumours that they were going to acquire a company. Zynga was, then, in the typical process of expanding it's assets and workforce to raise the value of their IPO or whole company value (The same way Playdom did before being sold to Disney, for example).
Vostu is very strong in South America, the strongest social game company here, so it was naturally the best target of aquisition by Zynga. However, Vostu execs asked for a much higher price than Zynga was willing to pay. In consequence, Zynga sued Vostu to attempt to drive their price down.
But in the end, the lawsuit carried for too long, and Zynga decided to go public anyway. Having no more reason to acquire Vostu, the lawsuit was settle briefly before the IPO.

So, not really pot calling the kettle black, just corporate bussiness as usual.

Companies have to respect each other’s legal and IP ownership rights in the form of copyrights and trademarks. In the case of Vostu, you can see for yourself that Vostu crossed the line [youtube.com] and chose to use our copyrighted IP and artwork.

I looked at the video he linked when he made this claim and I just don't see it. I see different drawn characters with similar aesthetic choices and different UI elements while still looking pretty much like the same game, exactly what Zynga does with every single one of their games.